Bears - IUCN

Such attitudes were fostered in the literature of the Canadian Pacific Railway
(Canadian Pacific Railway, 1888, p. 26, 1889, p. 58), which, while declaring that
at Glacier:
bears can always be obtained
also stated that:
the grizzly... is always looking for trouble and when he digs up the hatchet,
look out for squalls.
Things have changed with time, the rifle has supplanted the bow, but nothing
has supplanted the grizzly; he is there yet and king of the wilds...
It is little wonder that while most visitors probably only saw tracks, and although
virtually no one was injured, many people carried rifles or revolvers in
the backcountry.
To ensure the satisfaction of all Glacier's visitors, the C.P.R. had one and
later two bears chained to posts next to the station and Glacier House hotel.
Rev. Green (1890, p. 65) described one as:
a black bear cub, which at first made night horrible by squealing for its
mother, but, nevertheless, was a most intelligent, playful and amusing little
animal.
At least one of the bears escaped, its collar later being found on the top of one
of the snowsheds. The practice of exhibiting animals, often exotics, in the
national parks was continued for a long time, there being a zoo at Banff and,
even today, a buffalo paddock in that park. Perhaps even more grotesque and
inappropriate was the exhibition of dancing French bears at Glacier in 1895.
They had given displays all across Canada, but at least one bear got his revenge
on man by hugging a spectator to death in Winnipeg.
HUNTING
For a long time the hunting of bears in the park was encouraged by the C.P.R.'s
promotional literature, and there are numerous examples of hunts quoted in the
literature. Most were unsuccessful there being many difficulties, as noted by
Stutfield (1903, p. 148):
Bears, black, brown and grizzly are by no means uncommon in the Selkirks,
but hunting for them in those vast, dense and trackless forests is
like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Some bears were shot in the backcountry of the park but most were killed near
the railway. Thus,Sladen (1895, p. 296) notes:
We never saw or heard any grizzlies while we were at the hotel; but that
they do exist is certain, for they get killed in the immediate vicinity when
there are not too many tourists about to frighten them. There was one
killed just before we went there that weighed over twelve hundredweight.
According to Feuz, one of the Swiss Guides, later at the Glacier House, the
hotel garbage was quite an attraction. This may well have contributed to an
incident, noted by Wilcox (1897, p. 131) in which:
One gentleman had the good fortune to shoot a black bear from a window
of the hotel
Bears were also reported attracted to explorers supply camps and the railway
291